Dear Mick: Why can't going to a movie be like dining in a restaurant? If you don't like your meal, you can send it back and get another one.

Steve Shenton, Santa Rosa

Dear Steve: It's exactly like going to a restaurant. You can't send a meal back if you've eaten the whole thing, and you shouldn't send it back if you've already eaten half. But you can always get your money back if you've only eaten a few nibbles -- or if you walk out during a movie's first 20 or 30 minutes. Try it some time.

Hi Mick: As I introduced "The Wizard of Oz" to my 3-year-old son, I wondered, "But what does Mick think of movies like this?" Are such classics so overexposed that it becomes nearly impossible to view them with any objectivity? Do you watch it within the context of its being made in the 1930s?

Blue Ivy Had an All-Out Bidding War With Tyler Perry at AuctionWibbitz

Hi Alison: I don't think there's any need to view that movie objectively or to watch it in any context other than the fact that you're sitting there. Sure, it's possible to step back and watch with a critical eye, but that movie is great from all angles. As for the best angle? I think it's yours -- as someone with a history of seeing the movie now introducing it to a child and reliving that first experience. What could be better?

Dear Mick LaSalle: What an amazingly appropriate metaphor ("Like Crossing the Street in London"). I think all the libertarian/fiscal conservative Republicans will be Democrats by 2008.

Barry Jay Warsch, Miami

Dear Barry Jay Warsch: You're referring to my blog entry in which I said that many conservatives, who've developed a lifelong reflex for looking left for threats to freedom, are like Americans crossing the street in London -- they keep looking left, when the danger is coming from the right. I'm not making any predictions for 2008. I know it's very hard for most people to switch parties. Even though history proves that at various points in American life, the political parties have taken turns being wrong, most people, over the course of their entire lives, never rethink their political allegiances. It usually takes a disastrous presidency (a Buchanan, a Hoover, a Carter) accompanied by a national crisis just to make people even consider switching sides. Frankly, I thought we'd reached that threshold with resounding and unambiguous clarity in 2004, but I was wrong.

Dear Mick: Yesterday I went to see "Flags of Our Fathers." I knew that there would be graphic war scenes. This is not the first time that I have been to an R-rated film with disturbing content and seen small children accompanied by a parent (often a father). Why does the theater have to allow these children in, and what are these parents thinking?

Sharon Steckline, San Rafael

Dear Sharon: They're probably thinking that they can't get a babysitter, or it's Mom's turn to have a break. It's up to parents to raise their children, not theater managers, after all. However, despite my sympathy for the parents, you're right, there's just no way a child should be exposed to "Flags of Our Fathers." That's a very gory movie, and parents really should be more careful.

Dear Mick: The mention of "I Love Lucy" brought to mind how much I loathed it because, in spite of the talented Lucy and the Mertzes, Desi Arnaz destroyed the series by being a shrill, pro-Batista, male chauvinist, untalented, humorless, overbearing, nasal idiot. Don't you agree?

Robert Blau, Berkeley

Dear Robert: First of all, even if Arnaz were pro-Batista, it would have nothing to do with whether he was any good on "I Love Lucy." Second, Arnaz was from a wealthy family that had to escape Cuba because of Batista. (Their property was confiscated and his father was put in prison for six months. They immigrated to Miami with nothing.) Third, even if Arnaz were pro-Batista, which he wasn't, it's not as if Thomas Jefferson and James Madison have been running Cuba ever since. So no, I don't agree. Arnaz is my favorite thing about the show.

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